Rotorua Bike Festival goes up a gear

The Skyline Sprint Warrior down the side of Mt Ngongotaha is one of the Rotorua Bike Festival feature events. Photo/File.

The second annual Rotorua Bike Festival will have a full range of events to appeal to cyclists of all shapes, sizes and ages.

The festival, set down for February next year, will see the National Mountain Bike Championships headlining the opening weekend. The cross-country title is up for grabs on Saturday, February 15, and the downhill on Sunday.

BMX Rotorua will host a twilight meeting on the Saturday and road riders will get a chance to circumnavigate Lake Rotorua in the summer edition of Bike the Lake on Sunday.

The festival launches on Friday, February 14, with Go by Bike in the morning and the Redwoods Coast in the evening.

The Coast was a popular event at the first festival costing only a gold coin to enter. No pedaling is allowed with riders, who start at the top of a steep section of tar seal just inside Whakarewarewa Forest, coasting as far as they can. This year the fastest speed recorded was a shade under 70km/h.

The second weekend of the festival features three events that were also very successful in 2013. The Skyline Sprint Warrior is a downhill mountain bike race on Mt Ngongotaha on Friday, February 21, with practise day on Thursday. This is the only gondola-accessible trail in the North Island and riders in the first Sprint Warrior - including two time world downhill champion Emmeline Ragot from France - loved the format and the course.

On Saturday the Giant 2W Gravity Enduro returns to the Whakarewarewa Forest. Enduro is a new and rapidly growing format round the world, with timed multi-stage racing, it is like car rallying on bikes.

Wrapping up the festival on Sunday, February 23, the Inner City Criterium brings bike racing into the heart of the city with action an arm's length from cafes and restaurants.

Bike Festival programme co-ordinator Kim McVicker said it was great having so many high-profile events as part of the festival. "However, we've also got a whole bunch of other events during the week so everyone can get out and enjoy riding their bikes," she said.

These events include XRace Rotorua, Family Fun Ride, Bike Polo, Frocks on Bikes, Bike Speedway, Tykes on Trikes, Ladies mountain bike shuttle night, Ogo downhill, the Shweeb World Championships and MTB Adventure Quest.

A new event to the festival will be the Yeah Boi Sick Race on Tuesday, February 18. The race name was a favourite saying of one of New Zealand's best downhill mountain bikers, James Dodds, who died in 2012. All proceeds from the event go to a fund set up in his honour.

The festival programme is available at www.facebook.com/RotoruaBikeFestival.